Trying to write a letter of complaint...

And could really do with some advice!

Basically I am an Avon Rep and they have recently bought out a whole range of new hair dyes called Advanced Techniques Professional Haircare and in the Avon brochures they have a colour chart so you can see what colours are suitable to put on your current hair colour. They have even been endorsed by celebrity hairdresser Andrew Barton. My problem is that I bought 2 boxes of Chocolate Brown 6.7, one to use on myself and one to use on a willing friend as a demonstration at a party I was hosting.

I had carried out the skin test with no problem, I had the pre-treatment applied correctly and not to the roots, I used the dye all over my head, left it on for the full 30 minutes and I used the post-treatment on my hair after washing all the dye out.

The results however were not at all what i wanted, the roots of my hair had gone a very bright ginger and the rest was a dull brown colour that made my hair look like I hadn't bothered at all! After this disaster I then phoned in sick at work as there was no way I was going to go in with ginger roots and I had to book an emergency appointment with my friend who is a qualified hairdresser at the mates rates of £40 to sort my hair out and I have had to go red so that the ginger was covered up properly, hardly chocolate brown!

Needless to say I had to postpone my gathering and lost out on any potential earnings and didn't dare use the second box of dye on my friend. This however has put me in a difficult situation because I do want to complain about the result but at the same time I am a representative for the company and I really don't know how to go about it or what to say?

I don't want to blacken the image of this product but I cannot and would not honestly recommend it to my customers. What annoys me the most is that my hair colour was a brown colour anyway and on the colour chart they recommend this particular shade for people with hair colours between dark brown hair all the way up to light blonde! How a blonde person can use this hair dye is beyond me but that just backs me up in saying that my hair should not have gone wrong. I have never had a problem like this with other home kits which i have used as I cannot afford to pay £40 every 2 months to get my hair dyed when I already pay £20 for a cut!

Any advice on this matter would be great as I really have no idea what to do about this dilemma?

I would contact them and ask if anyone else has had a problem with this product, it may be a faulty batch.
Tell them about your problem and see what they say. Just explain what happened (pity you didn't take pictures) and the fact that until they answer you don't feel confident recommending it to friends.

The above posters mention about querying if its a faulty batch is a good idea and also like you said to us state that you couldn't recommend it to your customers, try and word it so it sounds like your doing them a favour by pointing out an error/fault rather than a complaint that way your trying to turn a negative into a positive and they can't turn around and drop you for bad mouthing the products. hope that makes some sense ive not slept well. sorry about your hair!

Ooo. Hair disasters are so stressful. To be honest, you explained it all in your post very well. You're not being horrible about the company, but expressing your disappointment and concern because you don't want them to end up having to recompense customers for trips to the hairdressers!

I also thought you'd explained it all very well in your post.

Yes I'd definatley ring them & let them know.

When making a complaint you need to make sure the person/company you are complaining to know what you want to happen. So in this case you could say you want money back for hairdressers & compensation for stress & lack of potential sales. Keep your request sensible & realistic, don't lose your temper & make sure you are speaking to somebody who is able to make a decision.

Good luck & let us know how you get on.

Put it in writing even if you do phone them-its easy to loose records of a phone call.

Just wanted to say thank you to all that replied, your answers were great and I think I will write a letter explaining what happened and luckily I did take some pictures as well that I have barely brought myself to look at! Think it must have been a bad batch and I took a photo of the serial numbers etc that are on the box so they can look into it further. Can't say for definate but the only logical explanation is that the wrong dye got put into the wrong bottle and it was meant for blondes as my hair went lighter and then the roots went the ginger colour I would get if I tried to dye my hair blonde from brown and then the rest simply didn't lift...Other than that it can only be put down to the pre treatment but I don't know. So many people on the forums and review sights have had good experiences with the brand and I've only seen one complaint saying that it gave them mild burns on the back of the head, other than that everything else has been great so slightly worried about raising concern if that makes sense? But when I finish work tonight I'll make sure I write a letter of complaint ready to send tomorrow - Think I will definitely go with the I would like you to investigate approach, feel a lot better about it now so thanks again everyone

Can I ask if you had youre hair coloured before using this dye? Sometimes different brands react differently with one another

I hope you get your hair and the letter sorted out.

Hi, I did have my hair dyed before but it was a semi perminant colour as I wasn't sure if I wanted to go too dark or not and liked the fact it would wash out if I didn't like it...The colour seemed to work fine on most of my hair (the bit that was pre treated with a cream you get in the box) but went ginger on my roots which wasn't pre treated (as per instructions) so then I've had to have it dyed a red colour which is slightly more noticable on my roots but can't be helped and it annoys me that I had to have my hair dyed twice on the same day as its become really dry and I've had to use loads of conditioner this week to try to get it back to normal :-( one thing after the other at the moment! Thank you for your kind words though